Legacy
by The 483
Summary: Some 1000 years after the events of Star Wars: The Old republic, the galaxy is a much different place, and the events of the Second Sith War and it's preceding period are the speculation of Archeologists and dusty historians. But for some very fringe elements, the Legacy's handed down in this period are far more relevant then would be expected. SWTOR, Original Characters.
1. Chapter 1

**Star Wars, The Old Republic: Legacy**

**Disclaimer: I do Not own Star Wars, or the Old Republic.**

_**Warning: Spoilers for SWTOR possibly contained within. Not really sure how much will be spoilers, and how much with just be my random crap.**_

_**Thanks for tuning in here, folks. Going to try my hand at something here, Based loosely on the happenings of a single family tree covering all 8 classes in the SWTOR universe, set several hundred years after the Old Republic Online Games Story line.**_

_**Once I get a feel of what direction I really want to go in, I will try and make a Cover Chapter to explain the background that happened between the end of the story portion of SWTOR, and the galaxy as it is where I have set my story. Thanks for bearing with me.**_

**Chapter 1: The Most sought after Salvage in the Galaxy**

Catherine Elizabeth Chambers sighed heavily, holding her head under the cool spout of water spraying from the shower head, dreading the time, a few minutes forward, when she would have to exit the refreshing waters. She knew that this would be the only time before her shower the next day where she wouldn't be miserably baked and sweaty.

She lived in a hut she had build into the base of a large tree on the edge of the massive equatorial jungle belt on a medium sized planet named Heracles orbiting just a mite too close to it's sun. But, its atmosphere was also a mite thicker than normal, creating a humid environment the world over, especially in the jungle belt.

The planet itself would have been completely without value, had it not been the fact that this planet was the sight of one of the biggest battles near the collapse of the Second Sith Empire, nearly 1000 years prior. Her history was a bit fuzzy, but if she remembered the things the other Scrappers and various Archeologists liked to gabble when they drank too much of that swill Marko called "beer" at the Cantina, the battle, or rather, series of battles that littered the surface with the precious debris that was now the chief source of income for Casey and the army of other scavengers made their living off of. The science type boys and galactic historians said that it was the last major space campaign of the war, the last rally of the Empire, pushed back to its home system, where it held out under the republic assault for months calling in all reserves and making their final stand, while the rest prepared to defend their capital planet for ground warfare. But the ferocity of the final stand was apparently the final show that convinced the political faction of the Jedi supported Republic that it was too dangerous to allow the Sith to continue to exist. Thus, the Republic began a brutal extermination campaign against all the Sith, using orbital bombardment on the home planets of the Sith.

After years of this, the Jedi, already touchy over the turn, openly broke ties with the Republic. From there, it was only a few more years until the campaign moved from Sith, to all force users. They argued that this "purge" was so thorough that it was the reason why there were almost no force sensitive's left in the galaxy. Even now, almost a thousand years later, and 3 more failed galaxy spanning empires, force sensitive people were a small fraction of a fraction of a fraction of 1% of the galactic population, and there was still a scare surrounding them even in the heart of the galactic core.

So in most cases where there was a force sensitive, those individuals tended to keep it to themselves, unless, like in Catherine case, it was impossible to hide.

"Oi, Casey! Your lazy rear up yet?" A shout rang out from the front of her house, and she jerked her forehead of the ceramic wall, sputtering as water somehow climbed up her nose. She had fallen asleep under the stream.

"*cough* Yeah, I'm in the shower. I know it's redundant, but make yourself at home." Casey reluctantly shut of the flow of water, and stepped out. She didn't bother with the towel. Her Air unit was still broken, and it was just as, if not hotter than it was outside.

"Damn, Case, your unit still on the fritz? It's hot as balls in here!" She ignored her friend, and entered her bedroom, already starting to dry. She walked to her bedside, scratching a healing cut on the back of her arm she got in a good old fashioned bar brawl 3 days earlier. She popped open a plain little box lined with velvet she kept on her bed table, and pulled her mask out of it, and fitted it carefully in place. It was a simple little bone plate carved with nice little pattern, and something she always wore when going anywhere, if part because she felt more naked without it then clothes, and because while it didn't disguise what she was, it made people around her more comfortable.

There weren't many of her species left in the galaxy, what with them all being force sensitive to an extent, and walking around advertising the fact that you had just two slight depressions of skin where normal, human humans had eyes tended to scare people. With this, it seemed that most people just thought it was some sort of decorative visor, and she didn't care to correct them. Besides, it was kinda pretty, and from what her mother had said, way back before their enclave had been attacked by scared settlers several planets and more years ago, that this mask had been in the Chambers Family form back in the days when the Miraluka people were more than just an oddity in the footnote of galactic history. But such things were as far from her concern as could be. She adjusted the mask using the curling horns on the bottom to center it on her nose, and turned away. If anything, it helped pull focus from the splash of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. She had dried already, and was beginning to sweat. She moved to her dresser, opened a drawer and rummaged briefly through the mess of rumpled clothing. With a satisfied noise, she found what she was looking for, and pulled a wrinkled strip of dark purple cloth out. She wrapped it around her chest, clipped it, then rotated it until the clip was in the back, and it lay flat, covering her modest assets while showing off and accentuating her limited cleavage. But far more important than that, was that the "shirt" was made of a light, spongy material that breathed well, and also helped absorb sweat for evaporation and cooling. She dug out a pair of simple, brief style panties, pulled them on, then tuned to her closet. She looked longingly at a pair of cutoff shorts, sighed, and pulled out her faded Wraid Leather pants, and began pulling them on. She would have preferred the bare legs, but they were going out into the deep jungle today, farther than anyone on record had gone, and these pants offered a better defense against whatever may lurk there.

The Wraid was a carnivorous reptile native to the desert planet Tatooine, and its skin was often used in hot weather gear because while it was surprisingly tough, it still kept the wearer reasonably cool, sue to the beast nature as a hot weather, active predator. She added a pair of socks, grabbed two ornate sticks carved out of bone off the top of the dresser, and then stumped out of the bedroom, down a short hall, and into the kitchen where her friend was sitting at the table, picking her nails with a curved hunting knife. Her friend looked her over with kind, ice blue eyes, before whistling softy.

"Eh, Casey, I thought we were working out in the jungle today, not dancing in the Cantina." Casey grabbed her long black hair with one hand, and transphered the carved sticks to her teeth long enough to gesture rudely at her friend, before finishing tying up her hair at the top back of her head, and using the sticks to pin it there. Case turned to look at her guest, co-salvager, and closest friend in the galaxy, Celestina "Angel" Taliaferro. She was dressed exactly the same as Casey, save her top was black instead of the dark purple. Angel smaller than Casey, sporting a true petite build rather than the tall athletic body Casey maintained, though that was not to say that angel wasn't well muscled, she just had a touch more padding that smoothed out her angles and tented her "shirt." While Casey had managed a fairly dark tan after her years working salvage on Heracles, Angel somehow managed to be lily white, maybe a shade or two darker than her long blond hair, which she had tied up in the back, but left out two parallel bangs that hung down past the outside of her eyes to the chin. She was as different looking from Casey as could be managed, but just a pretty, if not edging her out a pace.

"What are you on abut now, Angel? You're dressed the same as I am." Casey moved to the food cooler, and dug around, hoping to find something no less than 3 days bad.

"Right. That's why I said "We" and not "you." You know I will back your play. 'sides, I hear that dancing isn't a bad paycheck when the spacers are in town."

Casey grunted as she dug, and Angel simply enjoyed the show from her seat. Things were not quite learn to be a stripper desperate, but it would not be far off.

"It's not quite change of career bad yet. But if we don't make a strike soon, you might have to move into the house with me, and we'll have to leverage off some of the land." Angel continued to survey Casey's back acre. She lived in another tree carved house a bit further down the property. Originally they had shared the house Casey lived in now, but one late night, too much alcohol, a rather violent drunken make out session, a 3 hour screaming fight, a broken wrist, and a cracked rib later, they decided it would be best to have their own separate space when they needed it.

"I can live with that. But you'll have to get a bigger bed." Casey straightened up, and closed the cooler, empty handed.

"Why's that?" Angel gave her a sweet smile.

"Cause I wouldn't want you to have to sleep on the couch." Casey grunted, and began digging through the cabinets over the sink.

"Whatever. Is the droid ready to go?" She brushed something square and wrapped in metal, and was both pleased and irritated as she pulled 4 military grade ration packs. She tossed them on the table, and moved to fill their canteens.

"Yup. We're just waiting on you, chief." Angel stood, stretched, and moved to join Casey, grabbing flasks from the counter, and began filling them from the army of half full bottles of liquor. "Ugh, are the rations all you could find?" Casey nodded, capped the canteens, and tossed them on the table.

"Yeah, but we'll shoot something to supplement them with tonight."

"Goody. I love the taste of Womp Rat." Casey repeated her rude gesture.

"Whatever. Load the stuff in the bucket. I'll grab my arms and meet you out there." Angel capped flashes, slipped them into her leg pockets, then gathered up the stuff on the table and walked toward the front door. Casey smiled slightly, and walked to a cabinet on the other side of room, and opened it. While everything else she owned had a worn and dirty look, the inside of the cabinet was as clean and well kept as if it were new. She pulled her Blaster pistol out, a standard, bulk order low impact model out, and clipped it to her belt clasp. Then she pulled out her real treasure. It was Longeye high powered scoped hunting rifle. With its genuine wood stock and paneling, it was a beautiful combination of high and low tech. It was good art.

She placed it gently on the table, then lifted a black Wraid leather jacket off the back of a chair, and slipped it on. Adding the Jacket, she went from Space port harlot, to respectable frontiersman. She pulled her pair of well worn leather fingerless rifle gloves out of the cabinet before closing it gently and stuffing the gloves in a pocket. She hefted her rifle again, set it to rest, the butt in the crook of her elbow, the barrel resting on her shoulder, and moved outside.

"Morning, Arty." She said, giving a wave to the high capacity lifter droid, RD -4Z25, that she had bought way back before Heracles, and fixed up into a real asset. It made a whistling noise followed by a hiss, and continued checking over all the equipment on the 4 buckets that Casey and Angel had to their name. Whereas Arty was essentially a large square power and control unit, the buckets were nothing more that large dumpsters with null grav plates and rocket engines attached. Arty would attach to the top of a bucket, fix his anchor hooks to hard points on the buckets bracings, and "fly" the bins to the scavenge site to load whatever crap they could collect, until the bucket was full, then "fly" it back to the property and fetch back a new bucket as needed.

They were heading farther then anyone they knew had ever gone into the deep jungle before, which was to say, part of the Jungle belt about 30 miles deep, where hostile native life and machinery still active even after several centuries seemed to be in sufficient numbers to cause anything smaller than an military platoon a very low survival probability. But they needed to go further out now, with most of the salvage picked clean.

There were 3 base types of salvage that came out of the jungle. First, was artifacts. Ancient guns, apparatus, crystals, computers, ect. Basically any whole items that were of foreign manufacture. Next was salvage, which was mainly parts of artifacts, like broken weapons, droids that had to be destroyed, stuff like that. Finally, and least was scrap. Basically, anything metal that was poor quality, or just solid pieces was scrap. There was open prices on both meter square plate, and melt down scrap. But with all the easy finds taken by the scrappers that could afford to keep their droids cutting all the time, even the scrap market was drying up.

Casey moved to the table standing near where the buckets sat, laid her rifle down gingerly. She hefted her tool belt, and tossed it over her shoulder after a quick check confirmed everything was on it, And clipped her vibro-machete to the opposite side of her belt from her blaster pistol. Then she lifted her rifle again, turned, and walked to where Arty had lowered the ramp to the inside. She moved to the back end, raised about a foot higher then the rest, and hung her belt on a hook next to Angel's, and snapped her rifle into the clamps made special to hold it. She then moved to the operator panel, and began doing the preflight check off. By the time she finished, Angel had finished humping in the equipment, and Arty had attached himself and was ready to herd it.

"Alright, all green on this end, close the ramp and lets be off." With a whine of hydralics, the ramp slowly closed up, sealing them in the box. There was a shudder as the first null grav plate powered up, a lighter one, a miniscule one, and then a strong shove as the main drive engine fired, lifting them into the air. Casey moved to a corner, where a threadbare cushion sat, and flopped down on it, setting her back to the wall. "It's more then an hour to the spot I picked. If you want to catch a nap, now's the time." She didn't answer, but walked over, pulling a paperback book out of a side pocket, and braced herself against Casey. She didn't mind of course, and let herself be lulled back to sleep by the steady droning of the engine.

(...)

The Deep Jungle, as it was called, was actually not as dense as they had expected. If anything, it seemed a little lighter treed then their usual scavenging grounds. Casey was in the lead, her rifle held loosely, but she was ready to snap off a quick shot if a threat menaced them. Angel had one of her own Peacekeepers out, ready to burn anything that moved. The was a rustleing int the bushes of to the left, and Casey spun a fired instantly. The was a clunk, and a small explosion. Blaster bolts flashed in from in front and to the right as more ancient droids opened fire from the shrubs. Casey turned again, working the bolt, fired, turned, worked the bolt, fired, and lent let out an exclamation as a bolt hit her in the shoulder and she fell. She dropped her rifle and drew her pistol as she fell, nailing another 3 droids on her back. She swept, but Angel, crouched behind a tree, had already taken down the other droids.

"Well, that was fun. You still alive Casey?" She reached under her jacket, and felt. She was burned, but not bleeding.

"Too soon to tell. But it will hold for now." She rose, grabbed her rifle, and signaled Arty for pick up. He would bring the bucket, and they would load up the scrapped droids and weapons. She let Angel stand guard while she and the droid loaded the salvage.

"Not bad, is it? We already pulled enough for a full payment. Working blasters, and 10 full biped droids, mostly intact."

"Yeah. Haven't heard of anyone getting anything other than pieces in months. If we fill this bucket alone, we'll be set for two or three months, easily."

"Notice anything odd about these droids, Case?" She turned to look at Angel.

"Yeah. These droids are in good condition. They don't have any exposure damage, but are clearly as old as the ones in the lighter jungle." Something had been bothering Casey about the droids, but she hadn't noticed it until Angel had said something.

"Yeah. What's that say to you?"

"That they are either protecting something, or that whatever has been holding them had recently been opened."

"So we are totally going to go look, yeah?"

"Was there ever a doubt?"

They decided to try the direction that the first droid had come from. About half a kilometer away from where they entered, and 3 droid attacks later, they reached a small hill, with a vertical crack about 4 meters tall marring the face of it. Even a cursory glance showed that the "hill" was sporting heavy, ship grade metal more than a half a meter thick. Angel ran her hand down the exposed, sheared off metal.

"Casey, I think I can see dollar signs again. Can you smell how fresh this site is? By the Egg, Casey, I think I might faint. Even if this is just a shuttle, could you imagine what the electronics alone might fetch? Oh... and if there are some intact relics... ooooohhh..." She petered off, imagining the treasures they might have stumbled upon. Casey was indeed nearly salivating at the prospects of what could lay in wait for them. Needless to say, her cooling unit would get fixed. Then, she would have real food, and if their luck was good, she might even be able score enough credits to get a battle droid, just for an extra set of hands and guns.

But there was something she didn't like about the wreck. It was almost as if cold air was seeping from it, like blood from an open wound. It made her uneasy, but not enough to walk away from such an incredible stroke of luck.

"Alright, let's check it out. But Be alert. I don't like the feel of this place." Angel nodded, brought her guns up, and edged slowly into the cleft. She called out a clear, and Casey slung her rifle, drew her pistol, and stepped through as well. She need not have bothered, as the inside was slightly larger than cavernous.

"Casey..." Angel said with hesitance. "What kind of ship do you think this is?" They were standing on some sort of catwalk. Stretching in front and away from them, fading into the distant darkness, was an opening so big as to make them feel as if they were outside. A bent guard rail was a few meters ahead, and slowly, carefully, Casey walked to the rail, scanning as she went. She peeked over the edge, seeing only darkness. She pulled out her pistol and fired a shot straight down. The glowing bolt vanished from sight before it hit.

"This place is huge." She muttered, wondering what the hell they had stumbled upon.

"What do you want to do?" Angel asked, a bit of worry in her voice.

"Do you want to check it out?" She seemed hesitant.

"Yes... I just get what you mean about the bad feeling in this place."

"Alright, then we'll work with cave conditions. Florescent paint, markers, sonic buoys, lines on our belts." Casey drew a 10 meter line off her tool belt, hooked one end to an anchor on her belt, and handed the offend to Angel. "Let's go find out what we've found."

(...)

It took them an hour to navigate the catwalk back to point where they had started. Debris was littered everywhere, almost blocking off some areas. But they had made it fully along the circumference of the place, finding several offshoots and branches, mostly choked off with rubble. Everything was covered in soot and burn marks, most of the electronic systems they encountered had burned, if not outright been exploded. But they had found a reasonably clear point of egress near where the split that had granted them access to this walled off walkway. Moving down it, they came to a partially slagged door, half melted, half blown clear of its track. Casey had to climb up it to get over it, helping Angel onto the warped metal after. She turned, and stopped dead.

They were at another metal ring, stretching around and fading into hazy darkness. Casey moved to the railing, and pointed her light down. It seemed to be another hollow space that stretched farther then she could see. Here and there, large banks of computer gear sat scorched in piles and against walls. They were near a short out croping and a disk like protrusion extended over the gap. There appeared to be a body laying in the center of the area. Blaster pistol out and ready Casey moved to the corpse, only to see that it was a droid flanked by the remains of two over sized turrets. True, it was not the first broken droid they had found, the place was litterally cluttered with broken droids. In fact, they had not yet encountered a single working model inside of the wreak. Unlike the other droids, those one was... shaped different. It was clearly a combat model, but lacked the overall carbon scoring that the rest on the outer ring had displayed, like a massive blaze had swept over them. This was obviously a combat model, a fancy rifle lay nearby, bisected and worthless, and the droid itself bore several clear blaster burns, and longer furrows burned into its rust colored armor. But otherwise, it seemed to be almost fully intact. Casey signaled Arty for pickup, marked the droid, and thought she might take a poke at it herself, before they scrapped it. Angel was looking around.

"So much is burned... but there aren't enough rends in the hull to be burning from atmosphere entry. And the damage to the computers is almost like they were detonated from inside." She turned to look at her friend. "What is this place, Casey?" There was an excitement in her clear blue eyes, but a hint of fear too.

"I don't think this is a ship." She replied. And odd conviction based on size and space management bugged her. "There is too much open space, and the turrets scrapped on that platform would have been excessive even in a capital ship. I think... I think this is a space Station." Angel looked at her friend for a long, quiet time before answering.

"Something this big, buried in our jungle? And still being intact? That Doesn't make sense."

"Well, based on most of the droids we've seen here, this is from the same period, or even before the 2nd Sith War. Say a space station was taken out of orbit by some act, and survived impact with the surface. That would give it more than a thousand years of weather to bury it. And with the rain we get, say it made a crater, it's not infeasible to imagine the low area collecting mud and growing. You know how fast the jungle will reclaim a site if not held back constantly. Let's keep going." She slid down the bowed door, and again halted. They had emerged into a new room, a faint illumination leaking in from a far wall. They stood upon a wide swath of deck plate flanked by two large pits. At about 200 meters, a short flight of stairs lead up to what looked like...

"Casey, am I crazy, or is that a throne?"

"Looks that way." Up upon a pedestal at the head of the stairs, raised a little over a meter of the floor was a blocky, smooth sided throne with a series of flat spire like panels at its crown. They began to move toward it, when something caught Casey's attention, and she let Angel drift up the stairs by herself. She halted when the cord that joined them pulled taunt, an turned back.

"What's up, Case?" She looked up, like she had forgotten Angel was there.

"Huh? Oh, nothing, sorry. There's something I want to examine down here, go ahead and check the chair out." She unhooked her end of the tether, and returned her focus to the... aura she could see.

Being a Miraluka, she did not have the organs specifically designed to allow her the collect light to be processed into visualizations. Her species had evolved on a planet where the light from the star proved to be detrimental to the eyes of the human who had settled there. Generations of the radiation sterilized the eyes, while the strong nexus of force energies inherent in the crust of the planet infused with he people. In short, the infusion of natural force came to aid them as they slowly lost their vision, and replaces it, meaning that the Miraluka actually saw the universe with the force itself. As a side effect of this, it was not unusual for strong force emanations to be visible to them, in the form of an aura around the event. It could even be on people who had live overly virtuous or vile lives. It was believed that items used by these types of people for long durations, or for particularly heinous deeds, could absorb and radiate this even after no longer being in contact with their masters.

What Casey saw made her cease doubting this. She moved forward cautiously. A skeleton lay, propped against the wall, decayed black armor and cloth draped over and among the bones. The skull looked odd, a black, corroded apparatus seemed to be fused to the bone, and it distorted all but the empty, black eye sockets. But laying in between the leg bones was a grey cylinder, about a 30 centimeters long with odd curves and a recessed buttons here and there. From it, wafted dark red and black fog, boiling up from the object and dissipating a short distance away. She had never seen an object bearing a force aura before, and it fascinated her. But it also intimidated her. She didn't know what it was, but the aura didn't look... friendly. But curiosity overpowered her caution, and she ducked down, reaching to grab the item. As soon as her fingers closed around it, her back went rigid, and she stood upright, frozen in place as a scene filled her mind.

She stood on a reddish brown, dusty world, herself decked out in void black heavily armored clothes, a heavy cloth cape draping regally down her back. Her face was the only exposed skin, and it was pale and lined with dark veins. In her had, a meter long blade of scarlet light glittering from its end, the object she found was clenched. She looked out, over the dusty valley and the corpses of her underlings, and her opponent, already beginning to be buried by the windblown dust. It had been a decisive battle, a difficult fight, but she had emerged victorious, and she would continue until there were none left to oppose her will, and her blade would carry her to her goal. Not the one she held, of course. It worked, but it was an inelegant and brutish cudgel. Like a dulled blade, it was unsuited her surgical skill, and would be discarded when she could find a replacement worthy of her...

"Casey, you there?" Angels worried tone cut through her fogged senses, and she came back to reality. She shook her head to clear it, and looked toward Angel. She tossed the cylinder back down at the bones, and it bounced once, powdered crystal trickling out of its top. It rolled to the edge of the massive pit, teetered for a second, then fell, gone to the darkness. "Are you Okay?" Angel asked, and Casey realized that she must have already asked a number of times, there was real concern in Angel's voice.

"Yeah... sorry. That... whatever that thing was, was not friendly." She had wanted to say "Evil" but thought that it would seem weird to do so. Angel still looked at her with a strange expression, then jerked her head to the chair.

"Looks like that thing is bolted to a rail so can be raised and lowered. It looks like the bolts were jammed on impact, but I bet with Arty's help we could cut it down and tow it out."

"Yeah. It's weird. All the droids in that we've seen here are long disabled."

"Well, this place is obviously huge. Maybe they are coming out of another breach we haven't found?"

"Maybe. Either way, let's start loading stuff up." She went to signal Arty, and found her hand was shaking and her palms were sweating. She steadied herself, took a deep breath, and signaled.

It took 10 full hours to get all the salvage their 4 buckets could carry back. They both we so exhausted they all but passed out on the return trip with the final bucket. They were awakened by the thump of the final bucket setting down, and Casey said her goodnight to Angel, had Arty lock down the buckets before stumbling inside, putting her rifle in it's case, and just stripping down, dropping the rest of her kit wherever it fell, before hitting the bed, and passing out.

**End 1**


	2. Talking to Ghosts

_Starwars: The Old Republic. Legacy_

_By: The 483_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Star Wars: The Old Republic**_

_**Spoiler Alert: Some spoilers, Light to moderate, are contained herein.**_

**Chapter 2: Talking to Ghosts**

Casey woke with a start, lifting her head off her oil and rust stained arms. It had been three days, more or less, since the return from the crashed space station, and Casey had slept little, if at all. Angel had gone in to town, the only real town of merit, about two hours west, the Johnson Estuary, or "Swamp Ass City," as it was called by all who frequented they area. She had asked if Casey wanted to accompany her to start hawking the salvage to the local barterers who had connections with the spacers who would buy and then resell the goods where they needed to go, but Casey had decided she wanted to remain home and tinker with that odd droid she had recovered. This was true, to an extent, because she had been working almost ceaselessly on restoring and trying to reactivate the heavily damaged droid.

It bore internal scars that were almost as extensive as it's external injuries, showing the marks of several other tinkerers hand on its delicate components. But, she had to admit, that whoever had done the last refurbishing, had done a good job, considering they looked like they had been using stone tools. She had the torso strung up on a stand, half built with the head mounted on the neck, and the left arm from shoulder to elbow attacked and functional. She had managed to get everything but the power core functional, mainly because whatever power source was used to power this droid, was both incompatible with current models, and different from the other droids they had recovered. But, after a frustrating day and a broken stool and a growing bruise on her left forearm, she had figured a way to get the core spinning up to speed and sustaining its own charge, and now she was simply waiting for it to gain sufficient charge before installing it.

But, she hadn't been sleeping, not because she was stricken with creative need, but because she feared what she saw when she went to sleep. Every time she nodded off, she was back on the desert of corpses, angry and tired, and looking for blood. And like the echo of a barely remembered voice, she could hear something, calling out in the distance, in no words she could recognize, but words she never the less knew where intended for her.

What woke her from her light haze of sleep this time was the sound of a cough behind her. She did not think Angel would be home yet, and she turned to face... not Angel. Floating behind her in her workshop, was a cloud of different density patches of purple smoke and fog in a loose association. It pulsed and boiled there, its ends dispersing into the air as if floated.

"Three days of trying, and finally I have to materialize in front of you for you to answer me. Pathetic." The voice was soft, yet forceful. Deep, but with a brooding, angry undercurrent and clear feeling of authority. Casey stared dumbly at the talking hallucination. It grunted.

"No wonder. Your force connection is retarded to the point where I am almost surprised you can see." Casey still said nothing, and the cloud pulsed slowly. "Oh, I haven't taken a slovent form yet. One second."

The cloud pulsed stronger, the smoky purple contracting and beginning to take on the shape of a human body. It took a full minute for the smoke to coalesce into its final form, a female a little bit shorter then Catherine herself.

She wore jointed boots, with a delicate looking metal ornament on the front of the right one, and tight leather pants held with a simple belt. She wore a plain lonng sleeved shirt, and a pair of gloves that were more braces then gloves. Finally, a leather mask covered the top portion of her face, under a head of black hair held up in the back in a knot with a short lock of hair hanging down either side of her face.

"My, it seems I owe the other ghosts a bit more respect. Materializing oneself is more difficult than I thought." She turned her attention from herself to Casey. "Alright, then, who are you?" She asked, though it was said as a command. Casey continued to stare, her jaw hanging slack. "Speak!" She said sharply, her voice rising only slightly, but cracking like a whip.

"Uhh... I... I am Catherine." She said, stuttering. The apparition crossed her arms and scowled, making the edges of the scars that matched sewed up seems in her mask show clearly.

"Oh, well, that tells me nothing. Your full name. Now."

"Er... Catherine Elizabeth Chambers." Her brow cocked inquisitively.

"You? You are a Chambers? Has the line degraded so far as to produce an individual such as yourself? Are you certain, or could you just be the cull of some other line claiming the name for its prestige?" It was Casey's turn to scowl now.

"I was born Catherine Chambers. Who are you to comment upon it?" The other smiled to herself slightly at the irritation that had crept into Casey's voice.

"My name is Sereniya Chambers, Darth Nox of Dark Council, and at one time, the most powerful Sith in the Galaxy." She stood straight and proud as she rattled off the strange words, and uncrossed her arms. Menace crept back into her voice as she continued. "As to who I am to question your alleged lineage, I am, somewhere near the head of your family tree, your direct ancestor." She seemed to look Casey over, and sighed with evident disappointment. "Yes, I can see it now, the watered down blood in your veins. You are of our family line." Her form seemed to flicker and weaken slightly, and her brows knitted with mild concern.

"Hmmm, it appears that materializing myself her is rather more taxing then I accounted for. Very well, you will have to bind me to your will, so that I can remain here." Casey understood the words she said, just not their context or the order or meaning they were being used to convey. Her face very clearly showed this.

"What are you talking about?" She said in a voice between exasperation and complete confusion. Sereniya cocked her brow again.

"As even you can most likely clearly see, I am not more than a Ghost, or an imprint of my will made manifest of the force. As such, I can be bound, or assimilated, by other force users who could master the rituals and have the willpower to manage it. I myself had a number of entities bound to my thrall in life. As such, I have a certain amount of mastery over the processes involved, and can assist even a sorry specimen such as yourself in assimilating myself. This will be easier, as it is my will to be bound to you." Casey continued to look befuddled.

"But why? Why have you come to me? Why would I want whatever it is you have just said?" Sereniya looked pensive, her form dimming and then re-solidifying.

"...A number of days ago, you came into contact with something. An artifact or some other item once used by a Dark Lord of the Sith who styled himself as Emperor. I recognize the..." she swirled her hand as she searched her mind for the right word "... flavor of the force residue left, as I was a member of the team that put an end to his delusions. You still bear the spore of this contact. Though I doubt you can feel it, deafened to the Force as you are, the Force is out of balance. While we know little of the true nature of the Force outside of our own manipulations of it, I can tell you being out of Balance is not a good thing for anyone. There is dark and ssinister tide to the Force, and you sent ripples out with whatever it was you found. These ripples were strong enough to wake me from my grave to hunt you down." She crossed her arms again. "I mean you no harm, but I cannot even guess as to what else might come looking for the source of the ripples, but I doubt it will be friendly."

"But... what does that mean?" She asked, though she could tell by the suddenly softer tone of this woman that it was nothing good.

"It means that it is almost certain that some bad things are coming your way, and if you wish to have any hope in coming away from it clean, you are going to need my help."

(...)

Binding the ghost was surprisingly easy, but that may be because she did most of the binding herself, just instructing Casey in what to do as she came to it. She was just as condescending when speaking from inside of Catherine's head.

"Well, I see that you are not completely without a connection to the Force. I can work with this. But now you need to sleep, so I can settle and you can rest." Casey felt a surge of light panic.

"I don't want to sleep!" Sereniya was quiet for a few seconds before she spoke, and when she did, her words were almost soothing.

"You do not have to worry, Catherine. I will keep the nightmares away." And suddenly, Casey's weariness became unbearable, and she laid her head down on her arms again, and slept. There were no dreams.

(...)

Casey came slowly back to herself, stretching and yawning, the cooler air of the night feeling good. She felt rested for the first time in days. Even her mild, constant headache was gone. No that she was clear headed, she recalled vaguely a kind of spooky dream where she thought she was talking to a ghost. A ghost that was supposed to be some ancestor of hers or some other such nonsense. She sighed, and turned to her jury-rigged core charging device. The readout showed that it should have enough charge, so she grabbed the necessary tool, and primed the impeller. With a soft chugging noise, the core vibrated softly, it's status lights dimming, before coming back bright and showing that it would hold a charge.

"Well, it didn't explode, and it looks to be working. Might be a good day, after all."

The next half hour was a flurry of busy activity, installing, wiring, uninstalling, reinstalling right side up, and attaching extra computer leads to the droid, which now should have the minimal operating equipment necessary. With all the readouts Casey was monitoring reading green, she buried her back in the access panel in the droids back armor, activating the core and letting it send its energy back into the droids vital systems. She then stood back, moved in front of it, and waited for it to power up to full. Slowly, a dim yellow light glowed deep in the small slits that served as it's optical sensors. One blinked bright, faded, and the other pulsed in a light strobe effect. There was an electric sizzle, a loud crunching noise, and a shower of sparks fell from the rear of the droid and spread little burns all over the workshop floor. All the lights died, the slowly glowed back to full brightness as the droids systems booted to life. Casey waited with baited breath. For 4 full minutes nothing happened, then the head rotated an almost unnoticeable increment. Then it spoke in an odd form of speech. Casey stepped back in surprise of the sudden noise, but when she did not speak, the droid inclined its head to the side, like a curious human, and spoke again, and odd, grating sound that made Casey's ears hurt. This continued for some time, the series of sounds different each time, but nothing more than noise to Casey's ears. He tapped her chin thoughtfully.

"I guess your voder circuits must be fried. I hope I can find the parts to fix it. Unless of course, like the others, these noise are the ones you are making because you're trying to kill me."

"Gratified statement: Language Identified, modified standard, derivative but largely similar." Casey brow rose as it spoke her language. But it continued, before she could talk again.

"Introduction: Greetings, Master. This unit is HK-47. A pleasure to meet you. I am happy to inform you that I possess no innate desire to terminate you, but look forward to terminating many organic meatbags while in your service." She could feel his manner shift, even though there was no change in his tone or features. "Confident statement: An I asssure you, master, if _other_ droids were unable to terminate you, they were not up to _my_ lofty specifications."

Casey was bemuse by the droid, and it's odd speech pattern and wording.

"Oh, and what are your functions?"

"Repeatition: Master, I am HK-47, a Hunter-Killer class Droid, designed by Lord Revan himself as his personal assassin droid. I am fully capable in any form of unarmed and Blaster category combat, as well several tiers of various assassination protocols that you will no doubt find helpful in your endeavors. Retraction: Energy damage to my memory core seems to have resulted to the disability of all but the simplest of my assassination protocols. These routines should restore themselves, but it will take time. Continuation: I am also fluent in more than 2000 galactic languages, as well as other minor cursory functions featured in generic protocol droids."

"That is an...odd assortment of qualifications." Casey said, finding her chair and sitting in it. She had never heard of an assassination droid, but imagined it was a variant of battle droid. But she did think through the qualifications of necessary protocols and functions a droid would need to be an effective assassin, and it seemed staggering in scope.

"Hesitant Disclosure: I apologize, master, but diagnostics confirm that not only was my body severely damaged, but my memory core suffered several dislocations in most areas, as a result of combat damage and inelegant meatbag tampering. My operating data is limited and will need time to recover." Casey eyed the droid.

"She spent the next hour quizzing it for information while tinkering and making minor repairs, guided by its own knowledge of maintenance and answering questions it posed as well. By the time she felt tired again and decided to call it a night, she had reattached the rest of his left arm, and had the hand functioning. She would start on the lower body and hip joints tomorrow, she though as she moved across the dark yard and into the house. She stripped and got into bed cloths, as tired now as she had felt rested before. well, she had hoped to recover something she could use as a droid to help with defense and movement of scrap out in the field, and if even a quarter of what this droid claimed was true, she had made an excellent find indeed.

"Yes, Catherine, that droid is quite the windfall." Casey sat bolt upright out of her bed as the voice spoke clearly from behind her head. She saw nothing but her pillow. "What? Is your memory so bad that you have already forgotten about me?" Sereniya said, sounding irked.

"Oh, no, I just... well, thought I had hallucinated you." She sighed, falling back hard. Casey took to having a ghost living in her fairly easily. She was not convinced she was entirely sane at the best of times, and it would not have been the first time she had seen something strange like this in her short life. She remembered the ruins on a long forgotten world she had poked through, a burned out shell of building set on a gently rolling field of yellow grass filled with Kath Hounds. She forgot the name, Dantoo-something, or some such. Anyway, the whole place was often avoided by scrappers, because of wild tales of ghosts and other such nonsense said to be haunting the ruins. But when Casey had walked the ruins, she could feel them, and mixed with the wind, could hear the anguished cries, the sound of conflict, and feel the uneasy that had come when the place was being destroyed. The earth itself still bore the massive scars of whatever befell the planet.

"Sadly, you did not. But I meant what I said. I have dealt with that droid myself. In fact, I was one of the team that disabled him when he was working for Malgus the Betrayer. But, if you can get him in running condition, and he does accept you as his real master, he will prove an very valuable ally."

"An ally for what?" Casey asked, curious, as she stared at the ceiling, pulling her mask off and placing it safely in its box with one hand. She felt the presence in her mind sigh heavily.

"Clear your mind, Catherine, and let yourself simply feel." She coached, and, dispite the futility of it, tried. "No. Not like that. I know your force connection is shriveled, but it has the potential to grow. Just simply blank yourself. Let the background of the galaxy take you in it's flow and... um... hmmm. Ugh... this is Jedi type crap. My sister would be so much better at aiding you... oh, I know. Focus your attention on the mask you were wearing. Do not turn, just look to it, feel it's presence. It was bathed in powerful force energy every day for years while it sat upon my sisters face." Casey found herself looking inward, "seeing" Sereniya.

"Wait, my mask belong to your sister?" She was shocked by the implication. Sereniya looked displeased.

"... Yes. My twin sister, Slaush Chambers, in fact. She was one of the most powerful force wielders Jedi had during the war." Sereniya's image turned her head, reminiscing. "She could fade from sight and detection without effort, cloaking herself in the force, only to appear somewhere else, delivering a crippling blow and vanishing again. In close quarters force battles, she was almost unequaled. Even my disciple, Capris, was not her equal. Though Neither of us could have matched mother in saber combat." She turned back to Casey. "But yes, that bone plate mask is unmistakably hers, and still bears her spore. Now, focus on it, and see if you can detect its aura."

Casey tried hard, picturing it in her mind's eye, and trying to "see" it with the force. After a long minute, she could feel it, a glowing, light presence that seemed to warm her. It was as comforting as the aura around that object in the space station had been vile.

"Good, very good Catherine. Now, expand your awareness, let the flow of the force pull you along. Casey continued to bask in the soul warming glow her mask produced, and started to drift. She seemed to fall asleep, drifting softly through blackness, adrift in an ocean of peaceful nothingness. Suddenly, almost below awareness, she felt a ripple of unease wash across her. Then another. And another, getting stronger. Unease continued to ripple, like waves on the surface of a body of water. She could fell something, some feeling, rising up from her right, like rising sunlight across her skin. And like that, it snapped, and she was laying in her bed, covered in sweat.

"You felt it?"

"Yes." Casey said, her heart being fast. "It was like, something angry and burning."

"Yes. And coming closer, drawn by the exposure of Malgus's corpse. Once you get the droid operational, and get some money going, we will have to leave here, preferably before whatever is coming gets here."

"But... go where?" The prospect of travel did not bother Casey. Heracles was not ideal real estate in her mind, just a place that provided a steady living.

"We will go to Hutta."

"Hutta? Like, Hutta of the Hutts, Hutta?" She asked, surprised.

"Yes."

"Why?" Casey had heard about Hutta before, and even this place was better then that swampy trash hole.

"Catherine, back in my time, the Chambers family was one of the most prominent families in the galaxy. We boasted several members on both sides of the war, and worked not just within our factions, but with each other, to take care of ourselves in any case. Besides myself, my sister Slaush, and out mother Jay-elle, we had two members in the top special forces unit the Republic military, another Darth below me, a member of the Emperor's personal Sith warriors, one of the most notorious bounty hunters in the galaxy, a master smuggler, and the last two remaining member of Imperial Intelligence. These two, A Mirialan Marksman named Elation, and Zabrak covert operations specialist named Rainsong were entrusted with all the data and information we each collected. Though I was killed before the war ended, I do know the location, deep in the uncharted backwater swamps of the slimy planet where they were going to store our legacy. We shall go and either retrieve it, or find out if it was already used."

**End 2.**


	3. Chapter 3

_Starwars: The Old Republic. Legacy_

_By: The 483_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Star Wars: The Old Republic**_

_**Spoiler Alert: Some spoilers, Light to moderate, are contained herein.**_

**Chapter 3: Warm Reception**

It took three weeks for Casey to find a pilot that would lift her to Hutta. By then, she had HK up and running, and had even taken him out on a trial run and was impressed at the level of carnage he could, and apparently took great relish in delivering. Well, at least there would be one less group of claim jumpers now.

By this time, Angel had moved most of the materials, and they had made a return trip to collect the best of the salvage. She had told Angel that she had to leave, but not that she had the ghost of a distant ancestor living in her head instructing her. She promised she would pull some extra salvage to help get Angel set up to have a very comfortable nest egg, but she refused. She said there was no way in hell Casey was going to ditch her on some back water hell hole, and would hear no more about it. So, she had wheedled another passage on the ship for Angel.

The Captain of the scrap ship _Copida_ was a salty, flint hearted bastard who charged an equal share for HK's passage, but, seeing as he was the only ship even headed to that corner of space, they had little choice. So, with a reserve of somewhere around 60,000 credits (Angel handled the finances, as Casey could not be trusted not to lose the chits,) she said goodbye to her meager homestead. Her weapons, tools, and spare clothes were all that she really needed, so she sold off the property to another scrapper, including Arty with the price of the property.

So, with that handled, she hitched a ride on an outgoing speeder and made her way to Swamp ass City to meet Angel. When she and HK departed the speeder, she sent him ahead with her tools and rifle to get the kit loaded, and she moved toward the spaceport general entrance to meet with Angel. Partly, she wanted to see the city one last time, and partly because Sereniya cautioned her not to go the back way with the droid. So, she was strolling down what would have been a dirt road, were it not for the humidity, so thick it was constantly light mud. So focused on her own thoughts about the craziness of and speed her situation had changed into, she almost didn't notice the man standing in her path. But, her spatial awareness halted her and she looked up briefly, thinking the guy was crazy to be wearing a heavy hooded coat in this town. When he spoke, she didn;t realize at first that he was speaking to here. When she failed to respond, he lowered his hood, long, dark hair falling over his shoulders, and repeated.

"You are the one whose pretense was felt in the force."

"Aw, hell." Sereniya said in her head with a whooshing sigh. Casey shot hr an enqiring thought, but she sent back to be patient.

"Strange. I expected a source of such darkness to be more... impressive. Never the matter. You will have to be cleansed." The man reached for an object clipped to his belt under his... robes... and instinctively, Casey reached for her blaster pistol. No sooner had the movement started then something solid kicked her in the stomach, and sent her hurtling nearly 20 meters backwards, tumbling her and sending her sliding across the street as people screamed and fled.

"Of course it's a Jedi. I would have perfered a Sith, but no matter. Catherine, use your Vibro-Machete. Your blaster will be useless." She felt a wave of skepticism, and Sereniya rebuked her. "Do not quibble with me." Casey reluctantly pushed herself up. The man was now holding a glowing bar of deep blue light in his right hand, and was advancing slowly, but confidently. Sereniya could see just how much Casey knew about fighting with such an instrument, and knew she was doomed. But, being a ghost bond to one of your own blood line did offer some advantages.

"Catherine, I need you to let me take control of your body." Casey let off an explosively negative opinion, and then a curious air.

"Can you even do that?"

"Normally, I think not. But, because we share blood, I think I can, at a cost to myself." Casey was hesitant.

"But, if I do, how do I know you will give me back control again?"

"Catherine, you must simply trust that I cannot hold onto your body for long without a much more complicated ritual and preparation. And, also I would need to still be in my own body. But if you want to survive this, I think you will need my help."

"... alright, go ahead. What do I do?"

The jedi continued his approach, raising his weapon as got close.

"Do not worry, this shall be quick." But as he swung to behead her, she was no longer there.

"Pitiful Jedi." Sereniya's deep, rolling, condescending drawl spilled from Casey's mouth, which was spread in a wicked grin.

Inside, Casey was swimming in a clam sea of vicious hatred. She had ever before felt deep, steady, uniform rage like this. It was unfocused, unimpassioned. She was just simply mad at and about everything. By merging her consciousness with Sereniya so she could operate her body, she was bathed in her very being. It was like being submerged in deep, brooding storm clouds on the verge of rain. She could feel the force rippling through like bolts of lightning. In this cloud, Sereniya's voice boomed gently around her, just to her.

"I am sorry, Catherine, but this will hurt."

Back outside, the jedi paused, now uncertain. He felt the surge of power that suddenly surfaced. Catherine brought her arms down, small lines of electricity flowing across her skin. Heer skin burned everywhere it touched, but she also felt the tingling power flowing through her limbs. With a switch gesture, she cupped the gathering lightning on her palm, before sweeping her hand sideways and launching the blot of comingling lightning at the jedi. It hit him dead in the chest, and sent him down into the mud. Another quick shock kept him down for good. Sereniya brushed Catherine's hands together in satisfaction.

"Impressive, for one with real connection to the force." Sereniya cocked Catherine's head in the direction of the voice, to another character in dark robs up upon a roof to the left.

"And I find it interesting that a Sith would allow a Jedi, even if he were the stronger, to beat him to his objective." Both points visibly angered the other. "Now, little parasite, do you retreat, or die like a true Sith?"

"I think..." He said, slowly, without moving, "I will kill you, like a true Sith." Sereniya gave a satisfied nod.

"Well, it seems the attitude is still there. Now I will give you a chance to leave me to my business."

"Well, now, I can't rightly..." He got no farther as Sereniya blasted the building with another jolt of electricity. There was an explosion of dust and rubble, but it was a miss, and the Sith jumped into the air, drawing his own blade of scarlet and diving at her. Sereniya brought the Vibro-machete up, blocking the strike and using the force of the impact to throw herself back out of easy range. At her core, she was a ranged combatant, relying on her mastery of the force rather than her saber. The Sith leapt back as well, grabbing the dead Jedi's weapon and spring it to life in his left hand. Before he could move, Sereniya summoned a purple wall of static energy in front of her, and launched it down the street, the force of the attack tearing up the fronts of stores an sending deep cracks across the dirt street. The Sith warrior leapt, contorting himself fin the air and flinging his newly acquired saber at her. Sereniya threw herself forward on her face in the freshly burned mud. She could smell the ionized air as the lightsaber passed just over her head. Her arms were shaking as she pushed herself back up, and she knew she was weakening quickly.. It was using up all she had to remain in control off Catherine's body. She would need to end this, and fast.

"I apologize again, Catherine, for this will really hurt." She said, just inside their head. Pushing of, she jumped to her feet, and throwing her arms out, began to channel the lightning. Bolts of force made lightning arced between her and the ground and nearest building fronts. She let the storm of lightning gather for a minute, the bolts burning red streaks across Casey's skin where they touched. Inside, Casey screamed in pain, writhing and contorting. Outside, Sereniya gritted Catherine's teeth, feeling the same agony, but letting it fuel her rage and increase the effect of her power. Bolts of deadly lighting rained down in front of her, digging holes in the ground, shattering masonry, and lighting anything that would burn on fire. This hammering continued until the pain was no longer bearable, and Sereniya/Catherine collapsed to the dirt, semi conscious.

From the smoke and fire in front of her, she saw the Sith warrior stumble, his robes burning in places, blood leaking down his face, but still in better condition then Casey. He coughed, and noticed his left arm was dead.

"Not bad, lady. I don't know how you did that. I doubt even lord Nasar could have conjured a storm that violent." He wiped blood out of his eyes with the back of his right arm, and sparked his red blade back to life. "But, it looks like it cooked you wore then me, so, I am afraid you are out of luck." He raised the weapon, and spun it, angling the point down to drive it through her head. But Casey was beyond caring, having just been slid back into the driver seat of her own exhausted, damaged body. There was a muffled retort up the street, the Sith looked surprised, and he slipped sideways and fell dead, a hole burned in the back of his skull."

"Casey!" Angel came pounding up the street, her blaster smoking slightly, and dove to her knees near her friend. "Casey, what happened?" Casey tried to lift her head, failed, and muttered.

"E...Elec...Electric." Before she passed out. Angel looked over, and Saw HK rapidly approaching, rifle drawn. It had taken much drilling, and some modification to his memory core, but Casey had gotten it so that Angel was on HK's safe list.

"HK, make sure these bastards are dead, and if anyone else comes close, give them a warning shot, and if they keep coming, terminate them."

"Acknowledgement: No meat bags shall threaten the master." He pumped a round into the corpses. Well, through the corpses. Angel knelt down, quickly opened her med pack, and began treating Casey's wounds. There were a few pock marks and cuts from flying debris, but otherwise there was no real loss of blood. The frightening part was the network of red stitching that Angel assumed was what "electric" Casey had mumbled. But, they did not look like electrical burns. Angel had seen enough mangled hands from people toying with scrap droids to know electrical burns. These more closely resembled energy burns. But, a covering of gel kolto will cure damn near everything, so she covered what she could see, and then carefully removed her leather jacket. The lines on her stomach and lower back didn't end at the hem line of her jacked where she thought they would, but continued, zigzagging all over her torso. She sprayed and slathered what she could, but would still have to get under her top and in her pants before she was fully treated. While the burns were numerous, they were not gruesome, so she decided she could wait to strip Casey until they were somewhere not in the middle of a street that looked like a series of bombs had been detonated. Luckily, Catherine had regained consciousness as Angel finished, though she was still obviously concussed.

"Up you come, Casey." Angel said softly, moving underneath one of her arms and helping her to her feet, while still supporting most of her wait.

"...thanks..." Casey muttered with a slight slur.

"Never a problem, dear, but I think it might be wise to get out of here, quickly." She turned to the droid. "HK, take point, get us to the Spaceport." HK began to walk in the direction Casey had initially been heading, scanning and moving the rifle in line with his sight. The noise of the fight had served to clear many of the people out of the normally if not busy, then frequented streets. But Angel liked it this way. With the people having fled from whatever the hell had happened, it meant they had a relatively clear path to Spaceport, and less chance of HK ventilating any innocents. HK could be a little...overzealous in carrying out his assignments. They made it to the east docking station without incident, and found the ship being prepped to depart. Judging by the look on his face as he descended the ram as he came to meet them, he was not pleased to see them.

"Ready to lift ship? Good, Tell me where to belt down and let's get underway." Angel took on the brisk manner of command, and the Captains face seemed to darken even further. He looked over Catherine, the droid, and her, as a number of his crewman paused and watched.

"I am afraid that I have had a change of heart, and shall not be lifting you off this planet." Angel arced a brow, and gave him a cold stare.

"And I am afraid that our passage has already been paid, and that it is a little too late for your mind to change." She didn't move her hand, but the shift around the outer ring of men, and was ready to go for her blaster.

"Listen, lady, I don't know what kind of craziness you all are mixed up in, but I want none of it."

"No..." Casey gurgled softly, without raising her head. "Will... take us." The Captain snorted.

"Why is that?" He had no problem believing that he and his crew could manage a hurt chick, a short chick, and the rust covered droid.

"Because... HK... can be... quite... persuasive." Her head swam in and out of focus as she spoke, and it was hard for her to concentrate. She wanted badly to sleep.

"HK? You mean that hunk of scrap?"

"HK... warning shot." There was a snap of movement, a blot of concentrated purple energy, and a sizzle; one of the crewman fell, a hole burned threw his head. The rifled lowered a few centemeters and only then HK reply.

"Confirmed: Yes, Master." He fixed his glowing eyes upon the Captain, the rifle held at rest, but in his general direction. "Query: Do any other organic Meat bags require persuasion?" Though his voder offered only limited emotional range, there was a flavor of hope in his synthesized voice. Angel had taken the confusion of the shuffle to draw on of her own pistols, and had it pointed at the crewman that looked most threatening. She gave the Captain a grim smile.

"Well, Captain, shall we depart, or would you like to try your luck and get the rest of your crew killed?"

(...)

Wisely, the Captain had decided against trying to force a cancelation of service at that time. HK, needing no sleep, and able to interface remotely with the ships computers, stood guard over the modest bunks where Angel and Catherine stayed tucked during the journey. They were ignored by the crew the entirety of the travel time, especially after HK announced, in the presence of a number of crew members that he could likely pilot the vehicle himself, or, failing that, had the necessary tools to motivate the Captain to heartily assist in the task. As such, there was no move against them during the flight.

Catherine recovered quickly, being coherent the following day, and up and about the next, and almost fully well on the third. She had decided that Angel had gotten swept up into the mess with her, and had made her loyalties clear, that she deserved to be in the loop. She did not think Angel fully believed her about having the ghost of an ancient family member living bonded with her, but it did not seem to shake Angel. She was a solid type of friend. She related the battle in the streets, at least, what she remembered. She was not getting responses from Sereniya when she tried to talk to her, but she could still feel her deep in the back of her head. She could only imagine that what she had done to save Casey had been as hard on her as it had been on Casey, and figured she may need some recovery time as well.

Casey was impressed by the fact that outside of some scrapes across her belly and a heavy bruise where whatever it was that had thrown her hit, her injuries had simply faded. Were she to take a guess... no, she had no clue as to why. But she did miss the application of Sereniya now that she was subdued. She wasn't sleeping much again, because the nightmares were forcing their way back into her dreams. But there were new ones... more disturbing ones now, too.

In one, she was young, possibly younger then she was now, and voices she didn't recognize fought and squabbled within her head, and she felt poisoned by their existence. Another had her facing down and elderly man in a room filled with faceless onlookers. The emotions swirled about the room like a dense smoke, hatred, ambition, amusement, a twinge of fear, aimed at her as she fought, and an almost clinging sense of evil.

The final, and most frightening was also the shortest. It was like a snatch of a longer bit. She was weak, tired, and she knew it was over. Another woman was there, heavy plate armor making her look bulkier then she actually was, a rifle held loosely, aimed loosely in Casey's direction. She felt no shame in her defeat at this persons hands, but almost a sense of satisfaction. Casey felt she knew this woman, but that could not be, as she had never seen one like her before. While her only visible skin was a patch of slender neck and face, all of the skin was a rich, dark blue. Her eyes held no pupils, and were a uniform blood red color. But the woman herself, while certainly strange and intimidating, was not at all frightening, even though her charred and dented armor showed splashes of what Casey somehow knew was her blood, and obvious they had been fighting. There was a kind, sad look on the others face, and she got the feeling that there was no true animosity between the two of them. They had been opponent's, not enemies.

The frightening part was the utter and complete exhaustion that followed the resigned sense for failure she felt, knowing that all she had fought for and shaped, schemed and maneuvered and achieved ended with her. She was the last, and her death meant the end of an era. Then, the other woman spoke a few words that Casey could not hear, raised the rifle, and ended the nightmare.

So, once again, Casey was not sleeping much. Luckily, thanks to the mask she wore, Angel couldn't see he drawn lines of her face, and thus wasn't worried. And...it may have been her imagination, but when she put her mask on in the morning, it seemed to cool her mind and help her feel more... centered.

Luckily, they were not far from their destination, galacticly speaking. The Planet dubbed Heracles was galactic north of Hutta, being located in the North east corner of the galactic disc judged from the accepted Galaxy Map. Hutta lay almost cardinally east in relation, and hung on the ragged edge of the rim of the galactic disc. (Casey had known none of this when the trip started, having learned it out of the multitude of books kept in the common lounge. The Captain may have been a sour old bastard, but Casey liked anyone who could appreciate the company of books.) So, with only a short trip through Hyperspace, and a short elliptical orbit to intersect the planet to save fuel, it took just over 2 weeks to hit the planet.

Sereniya made an actual presence 2 days out, sounding as tired as Casey felt.

"Hello, Catherine. I am relieved to see you suffered no permanent injury." She did not sound like she held much concern.

"Yeah... It was all kinds of fun." She replied, a little proud of the sarcasm she managed to lace into the words. Sereniya cleared her throat, and moved on to other matters.

"Anyway, now that I am recovered to this extent, the nightmares shall again cease. I... apologies for the more traumatic ones. It appears that in my weakened state, some of my own... discontent leeched into your consciousness."

"Well, considering that the whole of your being is leeched into my consciousness, that isn't strange, is it?" There was a pause, and Casey realized just how bitchy she sounded. "Sorry, Sereniya, I guess I am just over tired." The voice in which she replied in seemed almost apologetic.

"It is understandable. And please, call me Siri. The rest of my... family did, and we are a good deal closer then I was with some of them." There was a slight bitterness unlike her general bitterness, but Casey let it lay, instead feeling flattered at the familiarity.

"Right." Sereniya said, trying to dispel the awkwardness she felt. "Well, you how badly your body reacted to funneling out large amounts of Force in the form of lightning. But, since it did not kill you, it means that you can in fact wield it, and eventually, you will become strong enough to use it effectively. I do not think that we will be left alone. Much like the roach, Sith and Jedi tend to be tenacious, and numerous. Seeing as we still have a number of days until we reach Hutta, you will practice."

It was not a question. So, for 2 days, minus short meals, sleep, and bouts of unconsciousness brought on by the stain/misfires of her casts, Casey tried to make lightning out of the force, and project it where she bid. Whenever one hand blistered over with angry red burns, she would swap hands, until that one was the same or even worse, then switch back. She was slow, but made a little progress.

She held out a hand, palm up, focusing on the light mist of force she herself generated. Then, having built up a thin aura of force attuned to herself, and used it to envelope the neutral force around her, bending it to her will and making it build an electric charge. Thin sparks of lightning danced around her arm, and a small reservoir of tangled volts danced in her cupped palm. Red lines stitched themselves across her palm where the bolts touched. But, rather than the searing pain that had accompanied her efforts a days before, now it created a mild tingling and a feeling like a slight sunburn. Holding it balanced in her palm, it took well over a minute for the heat sensation to become unbearable, and she clenched her fist, and snuffed out the lighting. She knew how to throw thee lightning where she wanted it to go, but refrained from doing so inside the ship. While she knew she would be useless with it ina real fight, it still felt good to have learned this much.

"Very good, Casey. I am pleased with your ability to learn, if not your conditioning to handle it. But, conditioning shall improve in time. My only irritation is that I lack the skills to teach you good saber fighting, but once we find the Cache on the surface, I may have clues pointing toward some documents, if nothing more." Casey sent a pleased emotion at the ghost, and Angel entered the room.

"Hey, Case. Gear up. The Old Man says there is no way he's setting down here, so He's gonna send us down on the ships shuttle." Casey, already dressed in anticipation, quickly gathered all of her belongings, summoned HK, and allowed him to escort them to the ships docking bay. She knew not what lay ahead, but she had been feeling a newfound zest for life since discovering that broken corpse, and was actually looking forward to this little adventure.

**End 3**


End file.
